Southdale Area - Edina

[Tcmetro]

A thread for Southdale Mall as well as other nearby developments not deserving of a separate topic.
Discussion of One Southdale Place (69th & York) and the Southdale Transit Center is included in this topic.

A few Southdale area developments have sprouted their own topics however:
Lennar's mixed-use project at 6725 York
71 France (Byerly's redevelopment)

I went to Southdale recently, and that place is dead now because of the ongoing renovations. Hopefully business picks up when they're done.

Anyways, I was looking around on the Edina Planning Commission website and found a staff report on the proposed apartments on the 69th & York corner of Southdale. The proposal is for a 10 story building, a 6 story building, and a 3 story townhouse with 232 units altogether and underground parking. Looks like they will also be killing off the Metro Transit park and ride.

http://edina.granicus.com/MetaViewer.ph ... a_id=36547

[woofner]

Good god. I know I shouldn't have expected much out of Edina, but this is disappointing even for them. They could fit an entire apartment building within their setbacks! A 55-space parking lot between the building and the street? What century are they developing this in?

Edina added a 10-point policy objective to their zoning code specifically to encourage better development within the Southdale area - this proposal seems to go against six of them:
C. To encourage a mixed use shopping, living and working environment that meets the needs of residents and visitors and helps mitigate the effects of traffic by reducing vehicle trips and miles by allowing residences in close proximity to employment and services.
E. To reduce setback requirements from public street rights of way in order to encourage and permit a closer relationship between storefronts and streetscapes.
F. To ensure that residential development in the PCD-3 subdistrict is compatible with non-residential uses.
G. To more efficiently utilize public infrastructure by taking advantage of peak demand variations among land uses.
H. To allow a density of development that improves the feasibility of mass transit services utilized by residents, shoppers and employees of the Greater Southdale Area.
J. To encourage development of an active pedestrian environment and pedestrian accessibility to and among developments.

I expect this kind of dreck from the schmucks at Stuart Co, but I hope it is keeping David Motzenbecker awake nights.

[mulad]

I had gone to Southdale about a month ago to see a movie and noticed they had some boards up with renderings of their planned new transit station. Didn't look like much -- just some fancier shelters, as far as I could tell.

Killing off park-and-ride lots at shopping malls seems to be a theme -- Rosedale's agreement ended this year, probably because there's a new P&R ramp over by I-35W and County Road C.

[mattaudio]

Maybe if the faces of the Southdale block (along France/York/66th/69th) eventually see dense urban development, it could sort of be said that Victor Gruen's vision will finally be realized and the era of auto-dependency of the enclosed shopping center would be waning.

[woofner]

it could sort of be said that Victor Gruen's vision will finally be realized

This site plan does resemble something that would have been built in the suburbs of Vienna in the 50's and 60's, only in Vienna the parking lot wouldn't have been so large or obtrusive (or possibly even existed).

[Tcmetro]

The new transit center is going to wrap around the edges of the parking ramp near JC Penney. The loss of the park and ride will likely mean a restructuring of the 578 and 579 bus routes.

As for the design of the site of the apartment buildings, the layout leaves a lot to be desired. They really couldn't place the 55 extra spaces underground??

As for the Byerly's project, reading from old Planning Commission minutes, the city wasn't to thrilled with the suburban layout of the project and the lack of access to the bus stop. IIRC, the proposal was for a 7 story and a 6 story building.

[bandar_seri_begawan]

New apartments near Southdale mall

[twincitizen]

F&C has the deets on the renovation: http://finance-commerce.com/2012/12/ren ... le-center/

[ztr421]

For the most part, I think the renovations have been great at Southdale. The new wood-facing on the columns give a nice clean modern-yet-vintage look, and taking down the enclosure on the upper floor walkway across the main court area really opens up that space.

But... Has anyone else entered through the new entrance between JC Penney and Macy's? It's such a weird design to me - I feel like I'm entering a hospital there. And it has a very uninviting traffic flow - you enter the doors and are greeted by a wall (it might be frosted glass, I don't remember) - you have to immediately have to turn left or right to go around it.

I wonder what the plans are for the old third floor food court... that whole wing is dead, and they haven't made the upgrades to the columns in that area...

[Didier]

As a general statement, since suburban transit centers are going to be a reality, doesn't it make a certain amount of sense to tie them into shopping malls?

Shopping malls are already a center of commerce, and lots of people naturally have to go to malls either to work or to shop. I'm not suggesting this model has been effectively executed (I have no idea), but in theory I'd think a transit center affiliated with Rosedale is a more effective and efficient location than anywhere else in that area.

[MSPtoMKE]

For the most part, shopping malls are already used as transit centers. Rosedale, Southdale, MOA, Maplewood, Northtown, etc. So, yes, I think they are logical places for transit centers. They aren't always well connected to the mall, though, they are often at the periphery.

[Nick]

I merged the 1 Southdale Place topic into here. Let's have one topic for Southdale.

[twincitizen]

Southdale rant:

I went to Southdale tonight. The refurbished mall entrances look great and and very inviting from the outside.

I may have said this before, but I feel like they (Simon) missed a huge opportunity to reduce the overall leasable space in the mall. Obviously that wouldn't be a mall owner's preference, as they are probably just a little more optimistic about its future than I am.

I grew up with Maplewood Mall and Rosedale. Those malls have very simple layouts. They are essentially 2-story rectangles, with anchors on the 4 sides (if you count the new theater wing at Rosedale as an anchor). From the center courts, you can just about see every store, save for a few that are located near the mall entrance hallways.

Southdale has a smaller central court, and more retail spaces in "pods" that are focused around the interior hallways/entrances to the anchor department stores. My point is that a lot of the smaller stores are hidden away in these wings, not visible from the central court. The renovation did a great job of opening up that central court; it is beautiful and many of the prime spaces are filling up. The wings/pods near the entrances and dept stores are quite vacant, and I'm not confident this will change. The JCPenney wing is struggling the most. Lots of blank walls on the first floor. The new food court on the 2nd level is coming along, but is still close to 50% vacant.

The other jacked-up thing about Southdale is that it has 4 levels!! 3 above ground and a basement. Macy's has some type of operation on all 4, plus Marshall's is entirely in the basement. They did add some signage near stairways and elevators to lead people down to Marshalls. The top floor is a mezzanine, only covering ~1/3 the sq footage of the mall, but it is almost entirely vacant. There's whatever small operation Macy's has up there, plus a dollar store (classy) and nothing.

Were it up to me, I would have sealed off the basement and let Marshall's have the whole top floor. Or just closed the top floor mezzanine area until demand necessitated its reopening.

It's too late now, but from an urban development standpoint, the best thing that could've happened is JCPenney closing or relocating to a standalone store. Then they could have demolished that whole wing of the mall and adjacent parking structure. That would've left a whole bunch of land that could've been sold off for development in the NE corner. Perhaps even some semblance of a street grid could've been restored. But alas the redevelopment happened, thanks to a loan from Edina, and Simon is likely stuck with a 20-25% vacant mall for the foreseeable future. The poorly named 1 Southdale Place is a good start to urbanizing the area. It would be even better if it had a sister development in the NE corner, perhaps screening or integrated with the soon-to-be-built Park & Ride. Had a good chunk of the mall been torn down, there might've even been demand for these street corner facing developments to have retail/restaurant components.

[min-chi-cbus]

Remember that as mall owners Simon needs tenants to lease space to turn a profit. It does them little good to tear down or close down large sections of the mall just to make it more "redevelopment-friendly" for other developers (even if it can sell that land for a profit, it's not their niche business).

I do agree though that the NE corner of that property (66th & York) is BEGGING for redevelopment and would be a prime location for an office or even additional residential. One problem that development may face is that it could potentially block both new(er) residential projects that recently went up at the Galleria and now at the SE corner of Southdale Mall. I doubt they'd be okay if another building blocked their million dollar views.

[John]

Twincitizen, I think you make some good points about the layout of Southdale, but I think it has been much improved with the new renovation. The secondary corridors seem broader and more connected to the main shopping arcade now. And I give the mall owner a lot of credit for maintaining some of the integrity of the original elements of the mall: the first enclosed suburban shopping center in the world. Overall , I think it is a lovely renovation with its low key but warm and bright interior. It has a quiet elegance about it that feels more enduring than the last rehab. I love the new atrium for the food court and it feels much better located than the previous one. Has a very contemporary, spacious, and airy feeling. As you say , the entrances are very inviting and give the mall some distinction that wasn't there from the outside originally. The designers did a sensitive and admirable job redoing this mall, and I think they have transformed it to become one of the the best looking in the Twin Cities. I wish the mall success!

[mattaudio]

Traffic sucks on France precisely because so many developments have access right onto France. Especially Byerly's, the West Elm complex, Centennial Lakes, and most of the land uses along the west side of the street.

[fehler]

Wait, is that an entrance/exit ramp directly onto France Ave? Oh for the mess of Byerlys traffic merging north crossing the traffic trying to turn right on Hazleton. And a sucky, sucky sidewalk.

[mulad]

Does that line up with 72nd Street?

Here's a map I've been playing with for densifying the street grid in the area. Is there any consideration being made for a north-south street running from that western roundabout by the Galleria down to Gallagher Drive? A cursory peek at the plans makes me think the apartments will be right in the way, unfortunately.

[RailBaronYarr]

I tend to agree with mattaudio on the multi-way boulevard... I think we cannot possibly hope to make our spaces better if we continue to fall victim to allowing the number of cars to move through and park in our spaces. Saying we can't turn France in to a multi-way boulevard with 2 lanes of through traffic because current vehicle counts at peak times justify their width misses the point(s):

VMT is already reducing, year-over-year. Gas prices are only going up. Why is France the only street that can carry all those cars to the local destinations? Are they merely passing through, using France as a mini-freeway or are they accessing places? How will people ever want to walk/shop/dine along France if it continues to have 3-4 lanes in each direction? Why would developers ever want to build street-addressing buildings if the road is in its current state?

France Ave between Crosstown and 494 is 1.88 miles. This could be a beautiful boulevard that one could conceivably walk the entire length making multiple stops to eat, shop, or be entertained. This could be the height of the urban core transect zone with areas to east and west marginally declining in density. I don't think we'll ever see transformative change in making our suburbs better if we aren't willing to suffer a little bit by reducing a lane and spreading that car traffic out to the other streets 1,000-2,000 feet away (or converting this car traffic to foot, bike, or transit traffic).

[mattaudio]

So is France a road or a street? That is the question.